you should go back to the library and start reading some of the many books available. Books are a very valuable source of information, you may learn a many lessons from those inked pages as long as you have time to sit around a library all day.

First of all, it was a bookstore, not a library. Those books are in there for people (or bipedal cats) to purchase, and to just sit in there reading them for free seems kind of douchey.

Second, you don’t have time to sit around and read all day. Your uncontrollable pyrokinetic powers have begun igniting things around you without rhyme or reason, the crippling nightmares that have plagued you since childhood have apparently started to communicate with you, and you are currently in the midst of a poorly-conceived plan to break into an evil wizard’s lair to steal back and subsequently deliver a package in an attempt to prove your competence to the one person in the world who seems to believe in you despite your flaws – not to mention you don’t have any money for food, you don’t yet have anywhere to stay tonight, and you’re pretty sure if you try to sleep outside it will start raining again simply because that is the sort of thing that happens to you.

And third, you can’t just wander into a bookstore and blindly start reading books in hopes of learning something useful from it. There are dozens of different books in there, and reading even half of them would probably take you…

Well, a couple hours at most. You’re a pretty fast reader.

Your point about it being a total douche move still stands, though.

833nirassi wrote:

> What about the Arcane University? Whether before or after the dance competition, you should visit it. The mages there can help you with your nightmares, and since they were also suspicious about Sigrid, help you find a way to counter her charm magic.

While the Arcane University would probably have an expansive library and maybe even wizards willing to help you against Sigrid, it’s also halfway across the country and, from what you’ve read about it, very selective about who may enter.

You admit that there is still a small, magic-loving part of you that wants to drop everything you’re doing and hike all the way there just to see what the place is actually like. However, given that your giddy mage-worship got you robbed yesterday, you’d rather not let it take you on an impromptu, unaccompanied, cross-country journey today. It’s probably best if you just stay in Kvatch and its surrounding countryside until Asotil returns to escort you back to Anvil.

1412 wrote:

I suggest talking to the woman who you met by the well. She knows at least healing magic, and she has insinuated her job is a bit shady(or not. while you’re there, ask what her profession is.). She may be willing to help you break into the guild to rob the most popular person in town and relieve her of her Ill-gotten gains. Or, at the very least, she may know something about your dreams/magical troubles, along with possibly being able to fill your magika.

KarneWarrior wrote:

Two objectives could be acomplished by finding an unaffiliated wizard. Surely there’s one nearby, you just have to ask around town for one.

Now that is true. You’ve gathered that there aren’t many professional mages in town besides Sigrid and her lackey, but even someone with a mild familiarity with magic might be able to help you get your powers under control or get past Sigrid’s charms. Or even have thoughts on these dreams, now that you think about it.

You check around for the Crazy Poison Lady who gave you that recharge yesterday, but it looks like she’s moved on. Maybe she found that mysterious person she was waiting for?

VerifiedN wrote:

Katia> Look for that party-going guy you met just outside the city. He looked kinda mage-y. Maybe he could answer some of your questions.

Next up is that cultist by the front gate. You know you’re trying to distance yourself from the whole “cults” thing, but he seemed like an okay guy – and someone who might have some magic background.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like he’s here right now either. The campfire is still there, but there’s nobody around other than-

New reader (as in a few days new,) and I just have to say that I love this story. I really love your character design, and the way it’s evolved over the course of the story is just fantastic. I’m excited to see more!

Tyrone

You will have to wait for like 2 weeks for the next update, though.
But it’s worth the wait.

Dovahkiin

More like a month. Shuda read slower.

Kazerad

Oh comeon guys, it was Christmas! I was busy. It’s not a huge secret that I’m actually Santa Claus, you know.

Nerevarine

I KNEW IT

Jebediah Oldenheimer

So does that mean you use a team of cliff racers instead of reindeer?

Champion of Morrowind

but still….a month?

honestman

the wait is 100% worth 😀

bibbi

I agree, while I don’t like waiting it is still worth it. well done Kazerad

No One You Should Concern Yourself With

Santa, can I have a pony?

Dragon

That’s a quote from somewhere, isn’t it?

moom241

NO! You are here to serve the infantile whims of a fanbase of anonymous internet lurkers! Your choices do not matter, ours do. Bwahahahaha!

Rakyth

Guys, Kaz just admitted that he only works a single day every year. Pack up; go home. We’re never going to see the end of this. 🙁

Alex

I’m a new reader, too, and also named Alex( I think I’ll probably change this to something like Fralex, though, just to differentiate us)! This is every bit as fun as Homestuck to the point that I’m not even gonna bother comparing the two because I love them both too much!

Noc

Oh shit, my name is Alex too. I use a PSUEDONYM, though. Lets my name stand out.

stupidjellyfish

Pointing at a lady is very rude.

Forgetful Argonian

I don’t remember this guy, who is he?

Forgetful Argonian

Nevermind

Kazerad

I beat you to the chase using HIGH TECH WEB 2.0 STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES (I hyperlinked a word)

It seemed necessary since it’s been like over a year since he last showed up.

Denis

Though, I’m an old reader, I was replaying your Kvatch mini-game just two days ago 😀 (I even brought Prequel to TES Wiki)

So I just started… and finished reading the whole thing this evening… actually it’s morning now… x_x
First some questions if I may: What is the approximate delay between updates? Does it have anything to do with the forum ‘command’ posts or only the artists’ spare time? Also is this a pre-made scenario or of the dynamic sorts?

Okay, now then, just a couple of my thoughts. Hope it’s okay:

I was (literally) overwhelmingly excited with the character developed in ‘Prequel’. It is so good that it alone drives the story which would otherwise be ‘not-so-interesting’ and turning it into something very, very entertaining! I am at loss for words when it comes to Katia. Never would I have imagined that a character formed by so many different people’s actions could become so complex while remaining consistent. It would’ve been a waste if any of her moments were missing, all from the parts of laughter, cuteness, or just plain silliness to those of dread, uncertainty and hopelessness. It’s incredible just how strong an impact the character had on me despite my very rough criteria. It means you did it right!

However, after all that praise I must also mention my worries. Like I said: I don’t care much about the Oblivion lore, that’s not why I’m reading this. The game maybe provides some backstory to the world, but it’s definitely the actors that are the main focus here, not the folklore. Character thoughts, decisions, falls and triumphs are what compels people to follow the story. This is why I’m troubled about the consistency of the rest of the protagonists, ‘playable’ (or even non-playable) cast. So far there seems to be only one person (besides Katia, ofc) that has had enough personality developed through action to be considered both important and interesting and that is Quill-Weave. Asotil is a classic NPC character, merely a means to an end, and unless he can break from that stereotype I don’t foresee any more growth from him. Nah(?) on the other hand is just so dull and predictable that, quite frankly, I have no idea how to turn her into a likeable character. It would require a major twist, yet even then… I dunno. Apparently there was only one other character that had just enough personality developed to be interesting to follow, that is Dmitri, but we all know how that ended… Guess it could potentially be salvaged with an original enough approach; we shall see. It’s one of those controversies which was already beaten to death so many times before.

Again, I thoroughly enjoyed this thus far and will be reading more of it! Thanks!

M’aiq the Liar

prepare for a long wait my friend, i would put this in a favourites tab and then maybe touch it in a month or two from now. maybe. I personally try to wait longer.

Juralumin

Although your words are true, your name lends you no credibility.

Delta9-11

YAY an update! LOL at the guy on the wall…I remember fucking with that guy ^^ awesome as always Kazerad

dude

Oh my golly, is this a dream?
Hmmmmm? No animations?
Too short for the time given minus the holidays.
Thanks!

Trance

Oh, a job performance review! You must be Kazerad’s supervisor. Well, I’m sure he’ll work harder knowing that his employment hinges on your approval.

Champion of Morrowind

it sort of does. it sort of hinges on all of are approvals :I

Champion of Morrowind

no disrespect to Kaz though….i love you Kaz

Trance

Sarcasm must escape some people, I suppose.

Hint: if you really think Kazerad is “employed” by any of you to do Prequel, you’ve got serious delusions about your place here.

Landromont

This update fucking sucked.

0/10 will return to judge next update in 2014

Trance

Troll harder.

Champion of Morrowind

I mean that if no one approved of Prequel, no one would view his updates. this is the exact same concept of a “YouTuber” and his/her viewers. if no one views the content then the project becomes pointless, but one’s opinion alone won’t change a thing. So your was actually sort of true. His employment sort of hinges on all of our approvals

(not to say that no one approves of Prequel. i love this series. just wish he’d upload a tad bit more often………I love you Kazerad)

Trance

You don’t employ him. He’s not making money from you. That was _sarcasm_. To my knowledge, neither through direct transactions nor ad space is he making a cent from this story.

And his project is not necessarily pointless even with nobody viewing it. He could, if he liked, reformat Prequel into a standard, non-interactive story, and carry on with no reader feedback whatsoever, purely for his own enjoyment and creative development. Despite what you might like to think, you’ve got nothing to leverage to make Kazerad do anything.

So many people seem to struggle with the concept of free content. A side-effect of our commercialized society, I suppose.

I love Prequel and I want to see it go on for a long time, because it’s thoroughly enjoyable to follow. But I don’t want Prequel to become a chore for Kazerad, especially to the point where the stress of juggling both Prequel and his real life starts to outweigh any potential satisfaction he gets from writing the story. He, like any of us, is an active guy who’s got stuff going on behind the scenes. Prequel should not be prioritized above RL.

If you want to help the general effort, you can start by cultivating some patience, and avoiding the urge to nag for updates like so many other people do. Complaining that free content isn’t coming fast enough does nothing but make you appear selfish and inconsiderate.

M

As I’ve noticed before Katia seems rather sensitive about her species.

Of course given that Khajiit (and Argonians) are treated poorly, or at least condescendingly in many parts of Tamriel…

Still I admit it makes it pretty entertaining to just beat the living shit out of everyone who makes racist Khajiit comments in the games. (Since I play one that’s… actually a badass barbarian with a little magic skill, rather then the typical thief role.) That and I’ve played a mage one (but that only really worked out especially well in Morrowind.) Actually funny enough I never really played one as a thief. I prefer to just smash or blast. Just I liked that big cat look, so why the hell not? Bonusses shmonusses.

Anyway back to Katia’s plight… Actually she’d probably best not torment the good captain further. He COULD still throw her in a dungeon. And that wouldn’t be good.

On the other hand, this guy might also run screaming like a girl at any ‘cult’ related mentions…

heidtmare

Katia, just mimic the “I’m watching you” motion right back at him… He’ll probably wet himself.

LP

Yes!

-LP

P.S. (Post in the commands forum so that this can actually happen.)

xxdeadrose

or just give him an evil smile and walk away 😀

8bit

It never fails to amaze me how many people think that Kaz is creating this story just for them.

I have constructed an ePub of ‘Volume 1’ of this site which is consumable on iBooks and (presumably) android ePub 3.0 compliant readers. It comprises posts from ‘Prequel: Begin’ to ‘Meanwhile…’. Links to Flash sequences have been embedded as mp4 video and javascript hidden ‘other commands’ have been elevated to top level.

Would you be interested in this to host along side the fan-art? It’s a 35mb file. If you’d like it, please let me know how best to deliver/post it.

Kazerad

My only concern would be whether the ebook format can support animated gifs, since I think that is a very important part of many of the images that are used. But assuming that the animations do work okay, I’ll gladly host it on the site! As far as delivery goes, you can probably find some free hosting site and send me a link to the file (my email is a@foxmage.com) or just send the entire file to me (I think you can send 35 mb files via email? I’m not entirely sure).

Billy

Kaz, I’m working on my own project is there a way I could chat with you to get some tips/help?

I wonder how katia knows where the arcane university is. She has never been there before, and I don’t remember her getting a map

Nicolai Syn

Looks pretty crude a map, and all she’d have had to do was hear. “That is across the country.”
Really it is in the middle of the country.
Plus, she has always read books, so there might have been a small map of the area in a book she read about the arcane university. Remember, we weren’t with Katia her entire life, so there are many things we don’t know about her past or prior knowledge.

“Mudcrabs only know hate.”

Moo?

Lesbo lizard did give her a map and maby katia has Eidetic memory (photographic memory).

Moo?

*maybe

Miss Hellbud khajjit

Was kind of expecting him to run towards katia punch her. I feel mean now :C

“Needless to say, it’s been involved in quite a few practical jokes. Most of which accidentally ended in the joke-victim getting killed. In fact, forget lending, maybe it’s best if you just keep the amulet. It’d be good to get some new fingerprints on it.”

It’s at it again, is this part of the joke?! Lol, hmmm! Either way, the amulet has been around the neck – and responsible for – the deaths of a few. Maybe their souls are lingering. 😛

Rage Inducer

I thought it’s pretty obvious what he means. They gave the amulet as a gift to wizards, those wizards had to fight but couldn’t cast a single spell. Funny yet paiful and can cause death if the amulet stays on while in battle. Haven’t played Oblivion YET but It’s common sence really.

Xavier

Of course, I believe that’s obvious too. That’s how I interpreted that. However, that’s just us taking guesses and this is yet another way to look at that and ponder curiously. We don’t really know a lot about the amulet, other than these facts:

It’s supposedly an “amulet of silence”
The mage’s guild used it for jokes
Those who wore the necklace often died
The mage’s guild didn’t care to be rid of it following the statement that it got people killed – “get some new fingerprints on it”
For awhile, it worked. But now Katia can cast spells while it’s equipped.

As for what we don’t know- is it really an amulet of silence? If so, how did Katia break the “cannot cast spells” fact about silence (enchants don’t wear off of necklaces)? Are there any other enchantments on it – does it have side-effects? How did the joke-victims get killed? Where did the mage’s guild obtain the necklace from – do they know its history?

It looks like the amulet only worked for a second when she put it on. Notice how she had a green light outlining her, but in the next 2 images, she was back to the black outline.

Segul

No I’m pretty sure that’s a geniune effect in Oblivion, you flash green for a couple of seconds when silenced.

Dpro1

i really liked the this last update, and it’s getting pretty interesting because katia have to do a lot of things but what about the dance competition, it wouldn’t be bad earn some money to get started to do all that stuff 🙂

Rage Inducer

Okay, cool. I’ll admit that it was kinda dumb at first. Those commands I mean but whatever the last part was awesome. What I think we’d all like to know is if updates will return to normal… -ish. Wait this was posted yesterday !? Are they returning back to normal Kaz ? as in an update every sunday or will you just go for the “when it’s done” rule ?

Andross

Meh update.

RedthePuppy

I still think Tavia is an untapped resource in this situation; a merchant would have to know a lot about the people in a town in order to stock goods that would interest them, so she could easily point you to a person with knowledge of dreams or understanding of magic, if there are any to be found.

RED_Sniper

Don’t panic. Explain that you were joking about the cult thing. If that doesn’t work out, either run away or use your pyromancer powers

Nithal

I can’t imagine that Gaius will want to talk to a former cult member, joke or otherwise, but perhaps he also saw another “rather lucky” orc enter the city a few hours ago. Hmm?

Hm… He seems shady enough. DO THE SAME FINGERS-TO-EYE MOTION BACK. >:U

BaronVonSomething

“Those books are in there for people (or bipedal cats) to purchase, and to just sit in there reading them for free seems kind of douchey. ”

That line hit me right in the gut.

I’ve been doing this since I was ten at Borders/Books a Million. Granted, I do try to look for things that I want to purchase, but I only started recently and I never find anything in my price range. Even before then it was only 1/10 of the time I would get something, really doesn’t help when everything is priced above $15.00.

At my local LCS, I was talked to about this by the store owner when I was casually going through an issue of Kick-Ass, even though I bought over $30 of merchandise from him in the past, a few of those items being a graphic novel and an issue of Walking Dead. He meant well and I don’t do it there like I would at BaM, but I was so fucking pissed afterward. We’re still good, though 🙂

Pointless banter, don’t hassle Kaze he’s been working hard, and I doubt it’s easy to animate katia and the world around. just leave him to his work and just enjoy the content that he’s been putting out it was Christmas after all.

Dumpsterrat

“the crippling nightmares that have plagued you since childhood have apparently started to communicate with you”…

…and now she’s talking back to the voices in her head. I really dunno what to think about this thrilling new development.

Nirassi

Apparently, Skingrad was “Fuckwhere?” and Bruma was “Who Cares”.

BlackZero

Great story, I do wonder what ever happened to the Black skinned (no rasism) human (no speciesism) necromancer. (no magism?)

Undead lich: Revive deceased minions and punish them for stupidity.

Also, stop putting four leaf clovers in their pants to increase their luck. It’s seriously not helping.

Noc

Haha, anyone noticed he only used one finger while pointing towards Katia?

TypoMan

Typo near the top of the page; it should be “midst” instead of “midsts” (ctrl+f should help)

Kazerad

Typo eliminated! Thanks.

I guess it makes more sense for her to be in the middle of something rather than in the middles of it.